Hey! Welcome to Roller Queen, a small dedication for none other than the cyborg girl on skates of Quake III Arena - Slash! She's an odd combination of ditzy and snarky, and weird all around. This page is my declaration of love for her.

INTRODUCTION & STATS

NAME:

Slash

SPECIES:

Human (Enhanced)

HEIGHT:

1.91 m (with blades)

WEIGHT:

65 kg

A young force-blade punk from the streets of Los Angeles, Slash became a test bed for the hottest cybronic implants, turning her into a barely-contained bundle of energy.

She is fast, nervous and deadly. Her slender frame is heavily cyborged. She moves around on force skates with glowing blades. She is very competitive and quickly displays her skillz when challenged, showing you why she's earned the title of Dragon Blade.

Slash is one of the many cyborgs of Quake III Arena, but she's the only one on skates! It is not clear why is she included in the Arena Eternal's dream team of warriors, but her description in the manual briefly mentions her winning the coveted title of Dragon Blade. This is never explained anywhere, though. Kinda sad that we never know what it is exactly that she did, because that must have been something awesome for the Vadrigar to decide that she'd be a good addition to their bloody sport. Judging from the name and it being presumably the event that caused her to be teleported into the Arena Eternal, we can suppose that it was some kind of fighting tournament on rollerblades.

Slash sounds like a total airhead, complete with "totally" and "like" as favorite interjections, but don't be fooled. She's an absolute badass - fear her! Her tongue is sharp, and her nails are sharper. In spite of her apparently delicate body, she has a preference for huge weapons such as the Rocket Launcher and the overpowered weapon of the game - the BFG10k, in which the BFG stands for Big Fucking Gun. Maneuvering a heavy weapon at her size while on skates is pretty awesome in my book. It's surprising that she can even lift a gun, let alone handle the recoil!

Other than being a playable character, Slash appears several times in Free For All matches of Tier 3 - Combat and Tier 4 - Warrior.

By the way - in this page you'll find some of her most important lines, but if you'd like to read more, see the Q3A quote database.

LOOKS & STYLE

Slash's face is covered in cracks that reveal that, underneath the skin, she's fully cyborg. Her modifications went so far that she no longer has visible ears.

Her face is partially hidden by her cool shades; they might not just be cosmetic though, seen how they're fused into her face. It can be supposed that those shades serve the same function as Anarki's visor: enabling her to see additional information about what's going on in the arena - in other words, the HUD of the game itself.

It is not known how Slash's face looks like underneath those shades, and I very much appreciate that her creators never felt the need to unmask her (or anyone else in Quake III). I hate it when people feel the need to unmask characters and then they're always oh so *pretty* underneath. If her shades are removable at all - and I doubt it - I'd think her face would look nothing short of terrifying.

Slash has a tattoo on her right shoulder. In her prerelease pictures, the tattoo appears to be vaguely reminiscent of the Quake III logo; however, in Quake III, her tattoo is of a simplified skull. It was changed back to the pre-release design in the later Quake Live model. I guess the skull design was a bit too obvious - I prefer the one with the circle, too.

Her left arm appears to be fully cyborg, as if it were replacing a missing limb. This leads to an interesting question about the reason why she went cyborg: it might be that it wasn't her choice, but rather the result of some freak accident. All my own speculation, naturally.

Shall we discuss the holes around her crotch, too? I guess they are the oddest thing about her design. They are a kind of a conceptual opposite to Anarki's, ahem, package saver. It can't even be chalked up to unrealistic armor design in videogames since this lack of special protection isn't particularly weird in a context in which characters don't really have qualms about dying and dying again.

Personally, I think that the reason for this detail has to be that her outfit is built of a single piece, and those holes are for easy access. Cyborgs need to pee, too, I guess.

As referenced in her dialogue ✱I'm gonna need another cooling fan implant., Slash has vents to cool off her cyborg parts. Presumably, she's talking about those holes on the outer side of her legs. They might also serve the function of making her more aerodynamic.

Then, naturally, there's her skates ✱Like the skates?✱Hey, [enemy] Let's see you try that move with skates on.!. She comes from an amazing future where cyborgs are a thing, so she has to have skates that make her levitate, too. Wheeee! She has a kind of a symbiotic relationship with them (as I'm sure anyone would if they had fucking levitating rollerblades) and she's always seen dashing through the arena leaving a shiny trail behind. This means that she doesn't make footstep sounds - instead, her blades give off a buzzing sound whenever she moves, so players wanting to locate her should pay attention to that.

It is notable that, in an early model, Slash used to have just regular ice skates, and had a slightly different stance.

Slash's back is one part of her that really shows that she's far from being human. Like a Terminator, there's only a thin layer of skin to make her look somewhat normal - right underneath it, there's really not much organic about her ✱Frack! Do you know how it is to replace those implants, [enemy]?. The holes on her back show a structure that is reminiscent of a cyborg spinal cord, probably exposed for the sake of aesthetics. Or even, maybe some of those holes are actually ports, perhaps to recharge her, perhaps for cyberpunk nonsense like, I don't know, memory downloading, something like that.

Design-wise, Slash seems to be very similar to Anarki, who can be considered her male counterpart. At least, her cyborg parts seem to be of similar appearance and color scheme. Maybe they are related. Or maybe they just have the same doctor.

HOVER OVER THE BLUEPRINT ON THE LEFT TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT SLASH!

In Quake III: Arena, all characters have a few alternative outfits for team games, and Quake Live only added more of them. They're not just recolors of the default model, so let's have a look at them!
These are all the variations of Slash from Quake III: Arena.

Slash's team game outfits (the red and blue ones) make her fully clothed, because I guess that if you show skin in team games you're gonna distract your teammates. Also, her hair turns dark blond, because don't you know that you need to dye your hair to do team games? I am naturally kidding with both, I just wanted to point that out. Obvious things aside, other than the team game outfits, you can see that there are two outfits that aren't really outfits, but rather different characters based on Slash's model. Because they're treated like alternative skins for Slash, though, they have her same chat lines.

The first one is the one known as Yuriko. Design-wise, she shows bare skin in the same places where Slash is clothed, making her considerably more naked. Basically a reverse Slash with a cyborg Japanese schoolgirl theme. I'd normally cringe, but since this game is rather equal as for what concerns fanservice, I can let it pass. Besides, her skates are made of smoke, which is very awesome, and she's still a cyborg Japanese schoolgirl! Badass. On a tangentially related note, it has to be said that there seems to be some sort of Japanese theme going on with Slash, since she does say konnichiwa and sayonara...It's possible that those lines are just there to make sense when Yuriko is selected, but it's also entirely possible that Slash is part Japanese. Or she just likes to say that. Or she's a closet weeaboo. Pick your favorite headcanon.

The other character based on Slash's model is known as Grrl, which is basically werewolf Slash. Why? Because why not. We're talking about a game that has a patriotic cyborg vampire, so why not a cyborg werewolf on skates. Why the fuck not.

Below there are all the variations of Slash from Quake Live. As a note, she's still got glowing skates, they just don't appear in the profile pics for some reason. Anyway, all of the outfits already present in Quake III have been de-bloodied (Yuriko had no blood to start with, so she appears to be unchanged design-wise), and a few more have been added: the sport outfits, used for visibility in tournaments. They look like a cross between her default outfit and the team ones. Also, the Grrl skin seems to be gone. Not quite sure why - Quake Live removed all the gore and pentacles of Quake III to get a Teen rating instead of the original Mature one, that is known, but Grrl doesn't seem to have either design element. It might be because she's technically naked, but again, she's covered in fur. Maybe they just didn't like that skin anymore?

CHARACTER & PERSONALITY

In her introduction, I mentioned how Slash is equal parts badass and ditzy. She belongs to the crème de la crème of the great warriors through the ages, yet she sounds like a stereotypically scatterbrained valley girl. This is precisely what I love about her: had she been part of the cast of almost anything else, she would have been a one-note character - the clumsy girl who giggles through an interminable series of failures, nothing more than comic relief.

Yet, Slash is a warrior, and not even by accident: it must take great skill, strength and dexterity to be able to carry, let alone use huge weapons while on skates, especially at her size. And personality-wise, it would be awfully limiting to describe her as just an airhead: sure, she sounds like one at times, but her replies can also be surprisingly sharp. She's often very sarcastic, and definitely wittier than her speech patterns would have one believe. Like all characters of Quake III: Arena, Slash is a well-defined character, very far from being a "type".

Going more in detail with her personality, one of her things is - she loves to win. ✱Winning comes naturally to me.✱Ooooo. Gimme some room, I feel a victory comin' on. She definitely doesn't play to participate - she wants to win, and will handle the biggest gun there is to achieve that. I think this might link back to whatever tournament she was competing in before being teleported to the Arena Eternal - and, of course, to her love for the BFG. But even more than her love for winning, the thing is that she's a very poor loser: it puts her to shame, and she'll make all sorts of excuses to get out of it. ✱Where I come from, they don't, like, teach you how to lose.✱I just hate losing.. A lot of it is certainly vanity, but there might be more to it - possibly about not betraying her fans. ✱I have brought, y'know, dishonor to those who trusted me.

Other than the BFG, another interest of Slash seems to be hot men, as referenced by some of her dialogue. ✱All that water and no hunky lifeguards. No beach either. And even though her past is mostly unknown, it is certain that in her romantic pursuits she got burned at least once. ✱That slime reminds me of a guy I once dated.

Slash has an odd sense of humor - both sarcastic and deadpan. Whenever the situation calls for it, she won't hesitate to taunt her opponents with some of her trademark smartassery. ✱Like, am I supposed to be impressed by that?✱Nice moves! Like, are they yours or implants?✱Did you buy those implants in a pawn shop, [enemy]? Some of her most amusing lines are, in fact, triggered by one of her opponents faceplanting! ✱Wooohooo. Can we catch that on instant replay?✱Death by papercut. What a terrible way to go.✱Laughing? Me? Of course I'm laughing at you, [enemy]. On the other hand, whenever she makes a similar mistake - which doesn't happen too rarely, considering her penchant for large weapons -, she'll act annoyed and try to make it pass as if nothing happened... ✱So. Like, I suppose you never off yourself? Right?✱There is, like, no honor in wasting one's self like that.

Another notable thing about Slash is her voice. She makes these weird high-pitched sounds that sound kinda sexual when she's in pain, and absolutely sexual when she does her taunt. I have no idea why is it like that. As a note, Crash's voice sounds almost exactly like Slash's voice, but lower in pitch.

CAMEOS & EXTRAS

Slash is one of only three characters to appear in a cutscene of Quake III: Arena. After the game credits, Xaero will be standing being all awesome, and Slash will skate through, hitting a wall off screen and skating back with the same gracefulness. Someone must have sabotaged her blades! You can see this video here, if you're interested.

Another cameo of Slash is in Quake Live - when the player goes idle, a picture of Slash taking a nap will appear and you'll be logged out. I guess even her creators have a soft spot for her. :>

The idea of Slash taking part in tournaments which involve both fighting and running on skates reminds me a lot of the Motorball games from Yukito Kishiro's cyberpunk graphic novel, GUNNM (also known as Battle Angel Alita), which had a section where the main character, the cyborg Gally/Alita (on the left) competed in similar tournaments on skates. I can't help but see the parallel here, and wonder if Slash's character could be a kind of a tribute to Gally.

APPENDIX & EXITS

I am particularly fond of Slash because she's one of the few female characters that I feel absolutely comfortable playing as. The first time I played, she immediately caught my eye in the character selection screen, and then when I learned about her personality I only liked her more. There's so little about Quake III fandom-wise, and I don't understand why considering that it's a game with a dedicated player base that only expanded thanks to the more recent Quake Live. I wanted to spread the Quake love, thus this site.

A few technical notes: there is no known official art for Quake III except for that one illustration of Visor, so I thought to make all the illustrations for this page myself. This layout was quite the tour de force! I'd like to note that I took the artistic license to make her cyborg arm more elaborate than how it looks like on her model, and changed the shape of the shoulderpad and of her lower legs a bit. Also, I added even more blood to her, just for the fun of it.
Larger versions of these illustrations are on my artblog.

This minisite is named after one of Slash's in-game nicknames; it was first put online in October 2012, and then partly rewritten in May 2013, when the layout was changed into its current one. Older versions of this site can be viewed at the rigelatin layout archive.

If you'd like to link to this page, here, have a banner. Most of these were donated by Larissa for the Amassment Secret Santa event (!!!).

Roller Queen is proud to be listed at Bad Ass Bitches, a directory for shrines dedicated to female characters! Go pay a visit for more dedications to awesome women in media.

If you've got anything to say, feel free to write me at this address.
Goodbye!